Xigmatek HDT-S1283 CPU Cooler Review

It seems it was just yesterday that the last paradigm shift happened with CPU cooling solutions. Before heatpipes were on the scene the only way manufacturers could increase the thermal efficiency (and thus their thermal load potential) was by making the big hunk of aluminum or copper which was their heatsink.... BIGGER! Then heatpipes came along and they were made a household name by AMD using them in their higher end “stock CPU coolers”. Well as with all things, life is about change and today is seems were on the cusp of another paradigm shift. This one is not as blatant as the last one as it is more of a refinement on already known technology but its practical applications are literally staggering.

In a nut shell, a heatpipe is nothing more than a sealed tube that is filled with a fluid that easily vaporizes, the heated vapor rises and is then cooled further up the pipe where it condenses and flows back down in order to remove even more heat. In its infancy, heatpipe technology’s cooling potential was not fully understood, so to hedge their bets (so to speak) manufactures went with the older, yet more inefficient method of having a copper base suck the heat from the CPU and then have the heatpipes remove said heat from the copper base. This was eons better than what was available at the time but it still had loads of room for improvement. This is where our next paradigm shift comes into play.

Instead of having the heatpipes sandwiched between layers of metal (or at the very least having a layer of solid metal on the bottom of said CPU cooler) Heat-pipe Direct Touch technology (or H.D.T as Xigmatek calls it) removes this inefficient metal layer and has the heatpipes themselves directly in contact with the CPU’s integrated heat spreader. In order to pull this off, the normally round heatpipes are flattened on the bottom so as to present as wide a footprint as possible. This is cutting edge technology and has yet to hit the mainstream and is really only being offered by a few maverick companies.

Today we will be looking at a CPU cooling solution from one of these maverick companies. The Xigmatek HDT-S1283 is a CPU cooling solution that incorporates H.D.T and is readily available from many retailer and e-tailers throughout the country where it goes for a very reasonable $30 - $35. If you have never heard of the Xigmatek, that is understandable as they have only been in business since 2005! However young they may be, their corporate goal of I.C.E or Impressive, Creative & Essential does nicely sum up why they are starting to make quite the name for themselves in such a short period of time. After all, the company may be young but the as with most things in life it is the young who really change the world. While comparing Xigmatek to Alexander Graham Bell, Westinghouse, Edison, Pascal and other young geniuses who are now famous for changing the ways we go about our lives is questionable; maybe, just maybe it will be fitting to include Xigmatek in such esteemed peerage. Of course only time and lots of testing will tell.

While Xigmatek maybe a somewhat unknown factor to many people, and while the HDT-S1283 may have a very forgettable (and some may say down right confusing) name, this cooler is gaining quite the name for itself; and that name is King of the Coolers. Is this reputation deserved, and will it help cement Xigmatek as a leader in the cooling industry or is just marketing hyperbole? We don’t know but we intend to find out.